Ariz. stays 40th in per capita income

New figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis put the figure at $35,875, compared with $34,539 in 2010.

But the increase was less than the national average of 4.3 percent. And that leaves Arizona in 40th place among all the states for income -- where it was in 2010.

Despite those numbers, economist Tom Rex of the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University was not downbeat.

"The situation is probably not quite as bad as it looks," he said.

The key, he said, is the figure the government uses to decide how many people are living here, one part of the equation in figuring per capita income.

Rex said the Census Bureau overestimated Arizona's population growth in the last decade. And the 2010 decennial count didn't take into account the effect of the state's employer-sanctions law.

That law allows a state judge to suspend or revoke the business license of any company found guilty of knowingly hiring an undocumented worker. Rex said that legislation has affected the number of people living here.

Put more simply, if the federal government used a lower -- and he believes more accurate -- population figure, the per capita income would be higher.

Marshall Vest of the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona agreed that the population number is off.

But he's not sure how much a more accurate number would boost the $35,875.

"Arizona's per capita income has consistently trailed the nationwide average," he said. In fact, there's a downward trend for the state, he added.

In 1986, for example, Vest said, Arizona's per capita income was 93.5 percent of the national average. By last year, it had slipped to 86.1 percent, the lowest point since 1993, when it hit 85.9 percent.

"I'm not surprised we had another pretty mediocre year," Rex said, saying the state economy is "very, very cyclical."

But, Rex said, it's unlikely that Arizona will ever skyrocket in the national ratings.

Some of it, he said, is the "sunshine factor," wherein people who come here because of the weather will accept lower wages. But Rex said other factors are at work.

In comparison with some other states, Arizona has a relatively low percentage of its population working. Rex said that's due not only to high populations of youths and senior citizens but also a fair number of unemployed working-age people.

Vest said, though, that a closer examination of the figures shows some bright signs.

He said that what constitutes personal income actually consists of several elements, and the earnings component, what people bring home from employment, grew at a 5.9 percent annual rate.

What held down the overall figure, he said, were factors like unemployment insurance, Social Security benefits and disability payments -- income not linked to people working.